


smoke break

by Tah the Trickster (TahTheTrickster)



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Bitterness, F/F, Heavy-handed metaphors, One-Sided Relationship, Pre-Fall of Overwatch, Smoking, Trans Female Character, Trans Moira O'Deorain, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-27
Updated: 2017-11-27
Packaged: 2019-02-07 13:42:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12842403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TahTheTrickster/pseuds/Tah%20the%20Trickster
Summary: Young and stupid. Picking up smoking because a pretty girl did too....She might’ve still been young and stupid. She was still smoking, after all.





	smoke break

The cigarette carton was nearly empty. She’d have to buy more later. Or maybe she wouldn’t. Wasn’t like it mattered.

Angela hadn’t actually been a smoker her whole life. Not even for most of her life, actually. She really hadn’t. Some of the newer recruits—that Cadet Oxton for example, whose ribcage Angela’s hands had been in more than once—probably thought otherwise but—well. That didn’t matter either. What did they know. 

She slumped onto her favorite stone bench—the one shoved haphazardly into the corner of the courtyard—and put one of her cigarettes between her lips. Scratch the match, light, inhale. The menthol flavoring nearly made her shudder at the sudden rush of cold on her tongue, but she ignored it and stamped out the match.

She’d had her first cigarette with that fucking... bitch of a colleague. She’d been out here in the courtyard then, too, armed with a bucket of chalk and a severe case of cabin fever after keeping herself cooped up for entirely too long in her laboratory. The soldiers passing through were even kind enough to refrain from treading on her ever-expanding jumble of formulae and brainstorming as she worked.

The click of a Zippo had gotten her attention, and she’d looked up to meet dual-colored eyes and a lazy smirk, cigarette dangling from spidery fingers. She’d scuffed out some digits with her heel, offered corrections with a low chuckle. Angela had been mortified by the errors, but quickly lapsed into a comfortable camaraderie as they discussed her work.

The scent of stale smoke had clung stubbornly to her jacket and fiery hair, and Angela hated that someone so attractive carried such an unpleasant scent on her. She thought she might’ve commented on it too, because she remembered the way her stomach fluttered at that smoky little chuckle in response. She’d said something about Angela being sheltered, and Angela being young and brash took offense somehow and held her hand out for one.

She’d coughed and choked her way through that cigarette, some shitty unfiltered menthol that made her throat burn, and trembled inwardly at the gentle laughs, and wondered whether those soft lips would burn just as much.

Angela snorted, dashing her spent cigarette into the nearby ashtray, grinding it to nothing. Young and stupid. Picking up smoking because a pretty girl did too. She picked up her carton again. She might’ve still been young and stupid. She was still smoking, after all.

But it was familiar. Comfortably so. Grab cigarette. Light. Inhale. Hold. Too familiar. Far too familiar.

Not as familiar as she’d been with that colleague. That’d been... exceedingly unwise. But god, she loved to push Angela’s buttons. She had this fucking...  _ tone  _ she liked to use. Not quite mockery, but perhaps a touch of maddening smugness. Like she knew more than Angela did. Granted, for certain things, she did, but. Christ. Fucking infuriating.

“Smoking in the lab?” she’d drawled that evening, seating herself atop Angela’s desk without asking. Angela had just glowered at her, stubbornly ashing her cigarette out the window. “Such  _ vice, _ angel. Here I thought you knew that was against protocol.”

Angela informed her quite bluntly that the weather was absolute shit outside, and she wasn’t about to go through fifteen checkpoints in the frigid-ass rain just to fail to be able to light up in the wind.

That’d made her laugh. Oh, she’d laughed. Angela remembered that delicious burr of a contralto well, remembered the infuriating throb it lit between her thighs.

Angela had fought it then, adding that she’d had a shitty day and was rewarding herself for not having a full mental break, as evidenced by the fact that Angela was not presently on her lab floor, counting carpet fibers.

“A reward?” she’d echoed, eyes glittering wickedly. “My,  _ my, _ angel. If  _ that  _ was all you needed...”

The kiss was rough, pinning Angela to her chair, clawed fingers raking through her hair, and Angela had been speechless, lips parted in shock at the absolutely debauched smirk she was being fixed with, fiery hair tousled roughly—had Angela grabbed her as well?—and sleek necktie askew.

She’d taken Angela’s cigarettes, then, teasing her that she could come claim a “reward” from her directly next time. Angela had just nodded mutely.

She hated to think of how much more addictive those lips and fingertips had been. She'd tasted like the shitty brand of menthols she'd gotten Angela hooked on, like the spearmint gum she chewed to mask the scent and the harsh bite of the whiskey she kept in her desk. She'd always kissed Angela with a feral sort of possessiveness, fingers tangling in her hair, clutching at her hips, nipping rough at her lips and growling low and guttural into the bruised and bitten curve of her throat.

Not that Angela didn't ever give as good as she got. She'd found that those neckties her colleague was so fond of wearing under her labcoats made for fantastic gripping points to yank her around by.

They'd never really talked about it, Angela realized now, staring at a crack in the cement walkway nearby without really seeing. She didn't realize she'd been lost in thought until the cherry on her smoke smoldered too low, burning her fingers. Angela swore as she dropped it, shaking out her stinging hand. Fucking waste of a cigarette. Waste of time, too.

Whatever. Angela really shouldn't be smoking anyway. She was full fucking aware of that. Quitting would be the wise option.

She glanced into her pack again. Last one. She sighed and grabbed her matchbook again. Last one, and then she was through with this shitty hobby. Angela felt sure she could find better ways to occupy her time than coating her lungs in tar.

That smug little voice in the back of her head reminded her that she'd similarly said at one point that she was through with that brilliant, gorgeous,  _ infuriating _ woman, too. Similar reasons, even. Angela snorted aloud. She was better than that, too.

But she'd... made Angela feel  _ alive, _ for once. It was addicting, the way those cool hands had mapped out every inch of her, the way those burning lips and tongue had tasted the depths of her desire, the way she'd so effortlessly made Angela tremble and gasp at her touch. Every single time, that woman would fuck her senseless and breathless and witless, and Angela loved every second of it, from those filthy whispered promises in her ears to the smoke she'd always light when Angela was trembling in the aftermath in bed.

The fact that she never really glanced in Angela's direction afterwards should've told her something. The cigarette she always insisted on afterwards should have, too. But Angela didn't listen to those. Senseless and satisfied, and hopelessly falling for her. Stupid. Stupid.

It took that night where Angela had slipped for her to realize. She'd been gentle with Angela for a change, had taken her slow and deep, murmuring low compliments into her hair with every little gasp and whimper. Angela had been unable to do more than tremble and clutch at her, panting into her throat, the space between them dripping where they met.

" _ God, _ I love you," Angela had gasped into the hot, sticky evening air afterwards, trembling with aftershock.

She'd jerked away from Angela, then, blinking hard, bewilderment evident in those heterochromatic eyes. " _ You— _ " She cut herself off, then, frowning deeply. She'd looked away for a long moment. Long enough for a tendril of ice to creep into Angela's chest. "No, you don't," the woman had said, finally. The tone more than anything had been what'd crushed Angela. She'd said it matter-of-factly, the same way she'd corrected Angela's sidewalk chalk calculations. Like it was a statement of proven fact. She'd stood, then, dressing herself before grabbing her cigarette carton off Angela's bedside table. "You shouldn't, anyway," she'd added, slightly muffled around her smoke. There'd been a flash of muddled emotion in her eyes, then, and Angela thought she'd seen guilt. "You won't for very long." She'd left before Angela could demand an explanation. Angela had just lain back in bed, watching her go, feeling suddenly very, very cold.

Angela understood two weeks later, weeks without seeing a single trace of her, when the journal leaked. She didn't feel cold at that point. Then she'd just felt empty.

A carton of smokes and an unhealthy swig from the whiskey in her...  _ colleague's _ desk later had seen her at said colleague's door.

Her surprise at seeing Angela there was evident. She'd been even more startled when Angela had yanked her into a rough, bruising kiss.

"Thought you'd be mad at me, angel," she'd said, her voice small, instinctively pulling Angela closer anyway.

"Oh, I am," Angela had grunted, nipping up her jawline as her fingers yanked that infuriating oxford shirt open. "In fact, I'm fucking  _ livid. _ "

Angela had let herself be fucked hard against the door that night, her skirt shoved up to her waist and her fingers tangled in that wild, fiery mane, and in turn she'd marked that fair, freckled skin with every bitter, heartbroken curse weighing on her tongue.

Angela had been the one to light up a cigarette and leave that time, confused dual-colored eyes watching silently after her.

It was pitiful. She was sure she had more self-respect than that. Well, she had at some point. Maybe less so now. Running back to someone using her for... Christ. Angela wasn't even sure what she  _ wasn't _ being used for at that point. And for what? Comfort? Was it even comforting?

Yeah, no. Just pitiful. Angela hated that she wanted  _ that _ badly to be wanted by someone else. Even for this. Even if  _ only _ for this.

So she hadn't said anything. Neither did her colleague. They both just... pretended they didn't know what they knew. They just worked as normal, and smoked as normal and conversed as normal, and in the dark of the evenings, they fucked like everything was just  _ fucking _ normal.

Angela blinked hard. Her eyes burned worse than her throat did now.

...Ha. She wasn't even willing to think of the damn woman's name, was she? Avoidance, now.  _ That _ was healthy. Angela smiled bitterly and swiped at her damp eyes. The menthol of her smoke seared her tongue.

"Moira," she allowed herself to murmur into the brisk autumn air. She hated that there was still some sort of wistful affection in her voice when she said it. She hated that her lips kissed the air when forming the word.

She hated it. She hated her.

She hated these  _ fucking _ cigarettes, too.

"No more of this," Angela decided aloud, ashing the remainder of her cigarette into the tray. She could summon up the willpower for it, she felt sure. One of these vices was going to kill her, and she wasn't going to wait around to see which one. She could do better. She could. She  _ would. _ It would be fine. Just fucking fine. It didn't matter how familiar Moira was, or how poorly Angela did without her smokes. No more of this toxic bullshit. She was fucking done.

She grabbed the empty carton as she stood. Mei would've throttled her if she didn't throw it away.

Angela paused. The empty carton shouldn't have  _ rattled. _

She glanced back inside it.

...Right. Her lucky. She nearly missed it; the white blended in with the carton.

Angela stared down at it for a long, long moment.

She'd just quit. She'd  _ just _ said she was done. That last one was  _ the _ last one.

_ Stop it, Angela. _

_ Just throw it away. _

_... _

_ Just do it. _

Her hand twitched.

She sank down onto the bench again with a weary sigh, hand dipping back into her pocket for her matches. Fine, then.  _ This _ was the last one. That was final.

(She said the same thing when she accepted the smoke offered in Moira's quarters that night.)

**Author's Note:**

> angela, cramming cigarettes into her mouth: its a metaphor, see


End file.
